Oh Canada

It’s Canada Day today.

The older I get, the more often I consider Canada and think, yeah, now that seems like a country that has its act together. There’s football and rock bands and rivers and streams of pure maple syrup.

Paloma and I were watching episodes of The Kids In The Hall last week when she suggested we move to the land that gave us Bruce McCulloch.

“I don’t think that they want us.”

Not that we’re trouble. We’re quiet, well-behaved and have both seen Rush live.

Hell, I’m watching the Lions and Alouettes in the opening CFL game at this moment…seriously.

(no billionaires fighting with millionaires for the last dollar there)

But Canada doesn’t want us.

(and this is a country that put out the welcome mat for the Quaids!)

But it’s cool, Canada. Paloma and I still think you’re swell and we thank you for all of the groovy stuff you’ve exported to us.

Here are four fairly random songs by Canadian acts…

Rush – Subdivisions
from Signals

I quickly realized upon entering high school that Rush was the only band that mattered for the stoners in band. At the time, I might have known the Canadian trio’s Tom Sawyer but likely little more.

But the group had a hit from Signals - New World Man – that was getting played on all the stations and, upon hearing the album, I became a devotee of the band, eventually owning most of their catalog, and catching them a couple of times live.

The pulsating Subdivisions, which chronicled the pressures to “be cool or be cast out,” seemed awfully deep at the time and, if it might sound considerably obvious now, it’s still pretty stellar.

Gordon Lightfoot – If You Could Read My Mind
from Greatest Hits

I’ve read that If You Could Read My Mind is about the break-up of Gordon Lightfoot’s first marriage and it certainly is a somber affair. Of course, it also might be a good example of the smooth-talking ways of Lightfoot, as I imagine he was fairly suave when it came to the ladies.

Leonard Cohen – Democracy
from Leonard Cohen

Management at the office where I slave has a penchant for using the term “rock star” as praise.

There are no rock stars where I work.

Acerbic, witty, literate, and with a delightful hint of menace in his lyrics and vocals, Leonard Cohen has had his songs covered by everyone from Elton John and Billy Joel to The Pixies and R.E.M. He spent the early ’90s linked to actress Rebecca DeMornay (who was half his age) and the latter part of the same decade living in a Buddhist monastery.

That is a rock star.

Bruce Cockburn – A Dream Like Mine
from Nothing But A Burning Light

Though Bruce Cockburn has achieved iconic status in his native Canada, the literate folk rocker remains mostly unknown south of his homeland’s border, though one with a devoted cult following.

The ghostly-sounding A Dream Like Mine found Cockburn well matched with producer T-Bone Burnett with the latter’s wife – the wonderful Sam Phillips – adding background vocals. The song just keeps trucking along with the same resilient spirit that runs through a lot of Cockburn’s prolific catalog.

Waiting For The Howl

The poster creeped me out – the slightly sepia tint that almost gave it the appearance of a photograph and the inhuman creature splashing through the shallow water.

Below the movie’s title was a tagline that, like the poster, was simple but made it truly chilling.

A true story.

I hadn’t thought of the movie in years and years, but, The Legend Of Boggy Creek bobbed to the surface of the subconscious a couple weeks ago. It would seem from perusing the internet that the nearly forty-year old flick has maintained a prescence in the psyche of a lot of people – especially those that were kids – in the early ’70s.

It apparently did most of its business at drive-ins, but it hit our small town’s theater in late summer of ’74. I was six and the movie, despite being G-rated, was declared forbidden the first time my mom saw a commercial for it.

But there was most definitely a buzz surrounding The Legend Of Boggy Creek. The movie purported to tell the tale of a Sasquatch-type creature living in the forests and swamps of a speck of a town in the southwesternmost part of Arkansas.

Filmed for nothing and featuring locals and not actors, the movie was shot primarily as a documentary, making it a precursor to and an apparent inspiration for The Blair Witch Project twenty-five years later.

The commercial echoed the poster’s eerie vibe with a camera panning through remote, isolated swamp terrain before ending with a shot of dense, ominous woods at dusk and an unholy howl as the voiceover offered the stark reminder that the legend was truth.

It was simple and effective, especially as, at the time, we were living in an apartment complex that backed up to a wooded area. That commercial would air as we’d be watching television in the evening and I’d stare out the glass door to the patio, out into the darkness of those trees and wonder what might be out there.

By the following summer, we had moved to a subdivision on the outskirts of town where the slight outpost of civilization that was our town gave way to vast stretches of farmland. There were wooded areas in all directions broken by expanses of fields.

Those woods were a playground for me and my childhood friends, but, as a kid, when the summer faded and the chill of autumn arrived, those woods would also become a far more spooky setting, especially with dusk coming earlier each evening.

There was nothing in those woods more threatening than deer, but they were mysterious nonetheless and the idea that there might be something out there in the thick trees had been planted in my young mind.

I couldn’t help but stare out my bedroom window, across the fields, and to the treeline on the horizon and wonder…

I finally watched The Legend Of Boggy Creek last week and it is most definitely a mixed bag.

However, the first ten minutes are as creepy as advertised and made more so by the schizophrenic music that accompanies the camera gliding through ominous swamplands and open fields as a young boy – about the age I would have been at the time – hears the creature’s scream.

I wasn’t much into music in the autumn of ’74 as I was focused on what might or might not be lurking in the woods. Here are four songs that were on Billboard magazine’s charts that September…

Eric Clapton – I Shot The Sheriff
from Time Pieces: Best Of Eric Clapton

I can’t say that I’ve ever been devotee of “Slowhand.” Oh, I admire his skills and understand his place in rock history, but there’s just something that never completely resonated with me. Perhaps it’s because when my interest in music was taking root in the early ’80s, Clapton wasn’t exactly at the height of his powers.

However, Clapton’s take on Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff not only became the guitarist’s biggest hit, it also brought the music of the reggae superstar to a new audience.

Stevie Wonder – You Haven’t Done Nothin’
from Fulfillingness’ First Finale

The funky You Haven’t Done Nothin’ – with The Jackson 5 providing backup vocals – took the political powers at the time to task and managed to reward Stevie Wonder with yet another hit song during his remarkably prolific ’70s output.

Ten years later, he was calling just to say he loved us.

Gordon Lightfoot – Carefree Highway
from Complete Greatest Hits

I like The Lightfoot (as I’ve noted before).

Brian Eno – Baby’s On Fire
from Here Come The Warm Jets

OK, Baby’s On Fire wasn’t a hit, but, in September ’74, Brian Eno’s first solo album since parting company with Roxy Music was on the album charts (albeit in the lower reaches of the Top 200). Despite limited commercial success for his own work, few musicians over the past forty years have been as influential as Eno has been as an artist, collaborator, and producer.

I would be in college before hearing Roxy Music or Eno’s solo work. It was my buddy Streuss who threw on Here Come The Warm Jets one day and the album blew me away. It was twelve years old at the time and sounded as though it could have been released twelve years in the future.

(and King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp’s solo is, in a word, wicked)

Pancakes, KFC, And Gwangi

The first time staying over at a friend’s house as a kid is akin to being an emissary on a diplomatic mission to a foreign state. Strict instructions were given in a parental briefing to do nothing that would cause an incident.

Like any trip abroad, there were different sights and smells, strange customs and unusual foodstuffs. The first time I stayed over at my friend Beej’s house, I learned that pancakes made for a perfectly acceptable dinner fare – something that was highlighted in my report upon my return home.

The most memorable thing about that trip, though, was Gwangi.

It was late and I think we had just crashed out when Beej’s older brother woke us, leading us downstairs and to the living room. The lights were all out except for the television.

It must have been the second movie on the CBS Late Movie, so it had to be well after 1:00 in the morning and the film appeared to be a Western, but in color, so it couldn’t have been too old.

And suddenly there was Gwangi, a large, carnivorous dinosaur and we were in business. At eight or nine, prehistoric animals held sway over cowboys, but this serendipitous moment in cinema had brought the two together.

The movie was a 1969 flick called The Valley Of Gwangi. I don’t think I knew any of the actors at the time, though it was James Franciscus – who would pop up on television and movies in the ’70s – playing the hero (if you can have a hero named Tuck Kirby).

It didn’t really matter to us. It could have been an actor named Tuck Kirby starring as James Franciscus. This was cowboys, dinosaurs, gypsy curses, forbidden valleys and a small sidekick named Lope.

We stared boggle-eyed as Gwangi feasted on a circus elephant. We were feasting on the remains from a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken that Beej had foraged from the refrigerator.

It was a very successful mission.

There’s a wonderful article on Ray Harryhausen, the legendary animator who brought Gwangi and friends to life, over at Popdose with clips from ten of his movies including The Valley Of Gwangi.

It must have been sometime in the spring of 1975 that I first saw The Valley Of Gwangi (and I’ve rarely come across it since). Here are four songs that I might have heard on the radio during April of that year (had I been listening to the radio – which I wasn’t)…

Alice Cooper – Only Women Bleed
from Welcome To My Nightmare

My all-time greatest arch-enemy has to have been my third-grade teacher. More days than not, the two of us were at odds. She was an Alice Cooper fan. I’m not sure if that was why I never bothered with Alice Cooper’s music or rather because during the ’80s – my musically formative years – he wasn’t on top of his game.

But I’ve gained a greater appreciation for Cooper’s catalog in recent years and the somber Only Women Bleed was not only a big hit for him, but the poignant ballad must have thrown long-time fans when it arrived (though, should anyone been surprised at the time by anything Alice did?)

John Lennon – Stand By Me
from Lennon Legend

Stand By Me is one of those songs that, to me, is simply perfect. If I was creating an Ultimate Jukebox as is being built over at Echoes In The Wind, Stand By Me would definitely be on there (possibly in more than one incarnation).

(and, according to Wikipedia, in 1999, BMI named it as the fourth most-performed song of the 20th century)

Gordon Lightfoot – Rainy Day People
from Gord’s Gold

I’ve expressed my curiousity with Mr. Lightfoot before.

There’s just something about the Canadian singer’s voice that is soothing and Rainy Day People - which I do remember hearing at the time – sounds especially inviting on a rainy, Saturday morning such as it is today.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils – Jackie Blue
from Billboard Top Hits: 1975

The title character in Jackie Blue sounds like one confused girl, but I can’t help but think of pizza when I hear the song. It seems like every trip we made to Pizza Inn when I was eight resulted in one of the patrons putting down their money on Jackie Blue in the restaurant’s jukebox.

I dug the song as a kid. It was catchy and mysterious, though, at the time, I mistook drummer Larry Lee’s falsetto for a female vocalist.